Poor telephone support on hold for an hour then they hang up

I logged a support ticket early last week with a fibre broadband issues (its dropped from 75 down to less than 1 down). The ticket was closed with no response, so I openned another one on Thursday, with no response I telephoned friday, no update to ticket (50min wait on hold, only to be spoke to by a guy who job seem to involve avoiding to open a ticket and blaming the user!!!).

I tried to get through Saturday and the call just gets bumped off back to a dial tone at arround an hour of waiting. Tried this evening, at the start of the call you get a warning average time to answer 45mins, got bumped off 3 times.

5 days and the ticket has not even been looked at.

Edited by deleted (Sun 23-Mar-14 23:26:12)

Just as I remember. Plenty of laughable awards for customer service though.

Post to the official community forums(if you haven't done so already), hopefully you may get some help - and avoid trolls.

In case you haven't posted on the PN Community Forums, I have asked a PN rep to take a look at your post here.

Hi shirehorse,

Really sorry for your wait for a response and also when trying to get through to us.

Can you provide a ticket number or message over your username and I'll take a look at that for you?

Kind Regards,

Hi Plusnet PR person,

The ticket number is #83117707, I telephoned today and was told the ticket is on hold and nothing can be done. I tried to telephone to cancel today, but there is a long wait on hold.

Why not post on your broadband status page there is a problem!!??

Why not get your staff to log phone calls against tickets???

Why boot calls in the queue before you hit an hour??

I am guessing its all down to making the KPI's look better???

The Calls to customer service stats page is showing 13 calls waiting right now, and 10mins 12seconds longest call waiting now. Yet when I called 15mins ago it warned me of a 45min wait... and am still waiting!!

All it would have taken is a simple message mid last week, sorry two or three of our core links are down we are working to resolve the issue, rather than hide behind stats and the blame the user game.

Fault still on going.

Very disappointed to hear that Plusnet's telephone support waiting times are still way too long.

15 min today and excellent service when through.

I can see that you've posted on your Fault Ticket 7 times since we updated you on what is happening with your connection on Monday.

We aim to get back in touch with you within 48-72 hours of the last advisor updating you. Please allow us time to investigate the issue you're experiencing.

We're continually working to bring the call wait times down. At the moment, we admit, they aren't ideal and it's still work in progress bringing them down.

I'm sorry that you're having issues with your connection getting in touch with us, we'll be back in touch as soon as we can with further information for you.

Try posting a fault ticket using a broadband connection thats dropping most packets and going as fast as a dead snail.

Here is the chain of "support" responses,

7:06pm, Thursday 20 Mar 2014

Broadband Troubleshooter started

Now you've confirmed your contact details and telephone number your broadband is supplied on, we need to ask you some questions about your problem.

We'll save your answers for 48 hours, so you can come back if you don't have time to answer everything now.


Your Response
7:12pm, Thursday 20 Mar 2014
Your support request has been escalated to the correct team for review.

Your Response
7:13pm, Thursday 20 Mar 2014
Your support request has been escalated to the correct team for review.

Your Response
7:14pm, Thursday 20 Mar 2014
Your support request has been escalated to the correct team for review.


Your Response
7:14pm, Thursday 20 Mar 2014

We are currently performing tests on your broadband service which will allow us to investigate the problem you've reported.

Please be aware if this is a new fault that this can take up to 24 hours.

We'll contact you as soon as we have more information and let you know what happens next.

Your Response
8:08pm, Sunday 23 Mar 2014
No response from support, connection speed even worse, waited over 35mins in telephone queue for no help what so ever. Speed test now shows download speed of 1.8mbs. This is not highspeed broadband.

4:23pm, Monday 24 Mar 2014
INTERNAL: Holding for updates.

.......



This Question is now on hold until Tuesday 25th March at 7:00am.

Whilst I don't doubt you have cause for complaint, your description of 1.8Mbps being "as fast as a dead snail" would have a large number of people gagging for it.

There are literally thousands getting under 1Mbps with no immediate hope of any improvement. It's all their lines can give.

Don't be so hysterical.

We need less dead snails then. Service offered/paid for 80Mbps broadband, service received 1.8Mbps. If I purchased a pint of beer and I was served less than a 40th of a pint (not even a shot glass), I think I would complain, would you?

If only broadband was sold like beer..... (Time to update the Weights and Measures Act....)

I agree speed is relative. However I would consider download speeds of 2 meg unacceptable based on my connection, both now and in the past. Perhaps the OP should mention what the history of his broadband connection is?

Yes, I certainly would. You clearly have a serious problem with that connection. But I would get insistent in a controlled manner .

You are talking to people just like you, working as hard as they can to do their job and help lots of people, (under a lot of pressure). You need to get them to go the extra mile for you, not think "Oh xxxxx, it's that [cough] again". Which is what I and I expect you might do in their position.

You do seem to be blitzing this forum, so I expect even more so the support system. People need peace, to think and solve.

If I understand you correctly you are comparing his low speed with your acceptable one? That isn't something you can do with broadband connections.

He has a major issue of some kind, probably a fault. Comparing his speed with yours or yours with mine doesn't mean anything in that context.

No not at all, you misunderstand my point You stated the OP's response was hysterical and many people would be happy with the speed he is currently receiving as it is all the line supports. I am merely stating that dependent on what speed he usually experiences, whilst his current speed may be marvelous to some it may be unacceptable to him (in the same way it would be unacceptable to me)

Edited for clarity

Edited by deleted (Tue 25-Mar-14 22:54:34)

I posted here, simply because as a customer I cannot get in contact with them to obtain support for a service that has been paid for.

To quote them,
"Please do not hesitate to get back in touch online at http://contactus.plus.net/ or by phone on 0345 140 0200 if we can be of further assistance."

I need that warm fluffy valued customer feeling... I need to know my hard earned groat is well spent.

Edited by deleted (Tue 25-Mar-14 23:11:48)

Ah .

I misunderstood you, because I'd already accepted he had cause for complaint. I was merely suggesting his wording was possibly a little OTT.

I'm really sorry to hear of the issues you're experiencing with your fault, shirehorse.

Our Faults team will be monitoring this for you and providing any updates on the ticket as soon as they have them.

I can appreciate your frustration during this time, however, our Faults team will be working to resolve this issue for you as soon as possible.